


A Closed Door

by thomasjeffersonsmacaroni



Series: Jennya's Scholarship App [3]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 14:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni/pseuds/thomasjeffersonsmacaroni





	A Closed Door

A—

The word implies that there is only one,

and there is, I will admit,

but it’s at the end of a long hallway

of things meant but unsaid and said but not meant,

promises broken,

glaring eyes across the dining table,

clenched fists and meaningless cruelty.

They line the hallway like torn Renaissance paintings,

ink bleeding out and reeking through the air thick as a cloud.

 

Closed—

No, not closed, slammed

so hard the walls shuddered and the house wailed.

The word implies that it can be opened – after all,

it is not a wall –

but every time I reach for the knob your words cut my palm

as if I were squeezing broken glass, clutching it like I clutch

the remnants of our relationship.

And then I run, and I’m not holding you,

I’m holding my pride

because no matter what, I don’t want you to see

the sob that escapes me.

And the door remains closed, and I know

that’s why you’re not opening it either.

 

Door—

The door is made of wood painted white

and in the corner of the frame, I see

a line made in orange crayon

back when you were two and scribbled all over the walls.

But it’s not just made of wood, you and I both know.

It’s made of my screams. It’s made of your tears.

It’s made of our differences and our wrongs,

my unwillingness to apologize when I forgot

what I had promised to remember.

It’s made of the time you came home hours past your curfew

and didn’t call and didn’t care that I couldn’t

even eat dinner, that’s how worried I was.

It’s made of the emptiness between us

where hugs once were, the silence

where there were once “I love you” s.

It’s made of my pride, and it’s made of yours.

And every second that it stays closed it grows,

but I stare at the knob and wonder

whether either of us will find the courage

to open it.


End file.
